A new poll by Latino Decisions of 1,600 registered Latino voters in New Mexico, Colorado, Florida and Nevada shows those polled in three of the states overwhelmingly support Barack Obama. Only in Florida do voters say they prefer John McCain; in the other three states, Barack Obama leads by at least 40 points.

“The Latino vote will be critical in the Southwest and Florida, and results of this poll show very clearly that Latinos may well provide Sen. Barack Obama with the margin of victory,” said Matt Barreto in the polling memo. Barreto is a University of Washington professor of political science and was a co-partner on the research.

In New Mexico, Obama leads 69 percent to 26 percent over McCain when voters are pushed. Without leaners, Obama leads 67 percent to 23 percent.
Trend lines from the August poll.

Barack Obama (D): 69% (68)
John McCain (R): 26% (22)

McCain has improved, but not nearly enough.

According to exit polling from 2004 provided with the poll, John Kerry only won 56 percent of the Latino vote as compared to 44 percent of the vote for George W. Bush.

A large advantage among Latinos is important in New Mexico, perhaps more than any other state in the nation. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an estimate of the population in 2006 said, “Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin” made up 44 percent of New Mexico’s population. This is more than any other ethnic grouping.

According to a map from the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies using numbers from the U.S. Census in 2000, the next closest state in Hispanic population is California with 32.4 percent of the population being Hispanic. Texas follows with 32 percent.

The four states polled by Latino Decisions are the only battleground states with Latino populations over 15 percent, according to the 2000 U.S. Census data.

The survey is a bit old, however. The survey is from August 18 to September 10. Obama’s numbers have gone up in overall polls in the past few weeks to his all-time polling high.

The poll also “showed that an unprecedented number of Latinos may vote - nearly 90 percent in those states.” If there is anything near 90 percent of voter turnout among Hispanics in New Mexico, that would be bad news for John McCain — and Republicans up and down the ticket.

The top issue for Hispanics in all the states was the economy. In New Mexico, 55 percent of Hispanics said the economy was one of their two largest issues. The second was the war in Iraq, with 34 percent in New Mexico. The only state to differ from this order is Nevada, where immigration reform came in second.

I would have never been polled for this even though I am a Hispanic on both sides of my family. This is because I don’t have a Hispanic surname.

From the polling methodology:

Registered voters were identified using the complete voter registration databases for each state, and then merged with a Spanish-surname list from the U.S. Census. Phone calls were then randomly made to the phone list of registered voters.

The margin of error for each state is +/- 4.9 percent.